Riocca

Very fair assessment of our experience of Viking versus Azamara, on Quest recently at the Captains Q&A we were told there’s always a plan B & C for every port especially those known to present potential problems where they may have a plan D as well.

Same for Onward, cut & paste brigade have been on duty, the description is copied from the original “3 sister meet” that was going to happen in 2020 😂 Embrace the musical traditions of Slovenia and make history in the process. Join us in Koper for a Grand AzAmazing Evening to celebrate our Destination Immersion® experiences. We will bring our three ships – Journey®, Quest® and PursuitSM – together in port for the first time for an unforgettable night. Available on our “Sisters Meet” voyages, we’ve pulled out all the stops for this once-in-a-lifetime event commemorating a decade of our commitment to Destination Immersion. We’ll transform Ukmar Square into an enchanting private venue, inviting guests from all three ships to an evening of fine wine, local cuisine, and live music starring Perpetuum Jazzile, an a cappella ensemble dedicated to preserving Slovenian vocal traditions. Revel in the enchanting melodies. Soak up the surrounding architecture. Savor superb cuisine and sensational sweets. As a special treat, we’ll debut an exclusive wine bottled locally for Azamara President & CEO, Larry Pimentel. On this occasion, we proudly honor our past while looking forward to a new era that will take our guests further than ever before. KRTM

It was planned to happen with 3 ships in 2020 before Covid stopped the world then there was going to be an AzAmazing Evening in the main square in Koper. From what’s being posted elsewhere this time it sounds like it’s going to be White Night on all the ships, hopefully the locals won’t object to the noise as we will be on Onward when it’s repeated next year.

Yes, currently 2 pm is the earliest embarkation for all but there should be a priority line for suites.

Someone on another platform was told it was to remove the ships from the RC Wi-Fi system, Onward was never part of that system as it was purchased after the sale.

Lee and Stuart both worked with Richard Twynam, we’ve met both over the years and although there positions are not directly customer facing we’ve found them extremely helpful.

Azamara have revamped the U.K. team and appointed a new Managing Director. https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/travel-agents/azamara-revamps-uk-sales-team-to-bolster-growth

Genuine question, who is actually looking at the test results Azamara or the Port Authorities? In fairness Azamara have never actually said a test is not required in Piraeus.

According to the website Azamara only require it if the port authorities demand it.

News of Bahrain only carried the story that visitors visas had been suspended on the 22nd September so it looks like cruise lines were thrown a real curveball. https://www.newsofbahrain.com/world/84215.html

Very good point, but U.K. travel agents will have collected the balances 120 days out while Azamara’s terms are 90 days this has created problems in the past when changes are made in the intervening period. Although in this case it does look like it’s well within the 90 days period, but some of the news reports that extra cruise ships would be positioned as extra hotels is dated mid September. Guess we probably will never know but the email did say Azamara were working on plans for those with tickets it will be interesting to see what that could be given the shortage of hotel accommodation.

That’s sound advice, a few years ago we booked Journey’s Monaco Grand Prix cruise, on race day sea conditions made tendering very tricky. Luckily we weren’t on an Azamara race tour and got ashore early as just after Captain Johannes suspended tender operations. Eventually everyone who had race tickets got ashore but it was touch and go, had we not been able to get ashore we would have had to take the hit for the unused tickets. We saved a great deal of money over the Azamara cost but it was at our risk but we accepted this.

Agree, previously Azamara have always suffered from being the poor relation of a mass market cruise line and I think we’re still seeing the legacy of that. I reserve judgment until Azamara are totally free from the restrictions of RC systems and for me that can’t happen soon enough. That said since the pandemic we have shifted from using a travel agent, who short changed us throughout, to booking direct. Other than the telephone system difficulties, which is improving, I have found the Azamara shoreside staff keen to help and any issues have been resolved positively. I really like that booking confirmations are emailed to you while you’re still speaking to the agent so I have been able to check all the details immediately, with our ex TA it often took months to get booking confirmations.

Sorry this referred to the Venice / Ravenna change that Host Jazzbeau mentioned, I should have made this clear. I do feel for those affected as it’s one of those “lifetime “ events, but agree with the dammed if you do comments Azamara have taken a lot of grief on here for announcing cancelled ports before the replacements have been established. This sort of thing seems to be happening more and more with local authorities making changes without a thought as to the implications to cruise ship passengers, I wouldn’t like to be running a cruise line at the moment.

My understanding is that originally Azamara were told that the ban would be for ships over 30,000 Tonnes and when the 25,000 Tonnes limit was announced they were caught out. They did try to see if there was any wriggle room but having originally thought they were going to be ok it put them behind the lines using larger ships who knew they would be banned.

Suites can eat in the speciality restaurants every night if they wish, but reservations can only be made once onboard and there’s no priority for suites.

Similar threads on the RC and Celebrity boards, also being reported online bookings could not be completed. Apparently on FB Royal Caribbean are reporting that their IT department are working on it and should be back soon, possibly an upgrade that’s gone horribly wrong?

Remember this is still the Royal Caribbean system and I can’t see them making any changes for Azamara now, hopefully when we get Azamara’s new system online sometime next year a lot of these shortcomings will be resolved.

That section of the website being down is no doubt generating a lot more phone calls, especially if it affects the booking system.

Was wondering the same, given how poor Royal Caribbean’s website and systems are their cyber security might not be much better.

Not been working all morning so possibly maintenance but we normally get a message advising that.

I queried this with Azamara when the testing first started and was told it was any time the day before.

Having cruised with many cruise lines the high profile meet and greets seems to be a Royal Caribbean/Celebrity thing. We had one on Quest last month but it was a low profile self administered thing with just room set aside for it, Ryszard did attend but only when someone reminded him it was going on. Now under new ownership maybe Azamara are taking a more ambivalent view of Cruise Critic like the majority of other cruise lines.

We normally use cash for the Crew Welfare Fund but earlier this month on Quest we made the donation through our onboard account. First thing we were told at the Passenger Services desk was that we couldn’t use OBC possibly because we still had a large amount left. Don’t know how they could show it differently on the television as they would have to show two balances with a gratuities section and for a cruise line that includes gratuities that would look wrong, as people may assume gratuities are expected. I realise that currently there is a gratuities line when you sign in the speciality restaurants but the system is Royal Caribbean’s, with Azamara’s new system onboard Onward we just signed on a screen with no opportunity to add gratuities.

A quick Google comes up with current protests against the mega cruise ships in Marseille, so maybe there’s difficult times ahead for cruise ships of all sizes. We are due to be there on Onward on the 1st November, be interesting to see what happens.